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The first Web President

I’m working my way through a stack stories and columns examining how the Obama campaign used the web, social networks, email and other online tools. They went so far beyond just “click here to send us some money.” Somebody on the team (some bodies) really understands this space where so many of us choose to live and work.

Here’s a couple of snippets to get started and I’ll update as we go under the category: Obama Online

Washington Post: “The nucleus of that (campaign) effort is an e-mail database of more than 10 million supporters. The list is considered so valuable that the Obama camp briefly offered it as collateral during a cash-flow crunch late in the campaign, though it wound up never needing the loan, senior aides said. At least 3.1 million people on the list donated money to Obama.”
New York Times: “The juxtaposition of a networked, open-source campaign and a historically imperial office will have profound implications and raise significant questions. Special-interest groups and lobbyists will now contend with an environment of transparency and a president who owes them nothing. The news media will now contend with an administration that can take its case directly to its base without even booking time on the networks.

More profoundly, while many people think that President-elect Obama is a gift to the Democratic Party, he could actually hasten its demise. Political parties supply brand, ground troops, money and relationships, all things that Mr. Obama already owns.”

I’ve felt since I first got hooked on Obama’s campaign that my affinity is to this particular man (and his ideas), not the Democratic Party.

An excellent source for this kind of info is techPresident.

NYT/Bits: “Mr. Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. (Joe) Trippi argued that those videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.

“The campaign’s official stuff they created for YouTube was watched for 14.5 million hours,” Mr. Trippi said. “To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million.”

There has also been a sea change in fact-checking, with citizens using the Internet to find past speeches that prove a politician wrong and then using the Web to alert their fellow citizens.”